Accountancy and Empire

This book brings together, for the first time, studies of the professionalisation of accountancy in key constituent territories of the British Empire. The late nineteenth century was a period of intensive activity in terms of both imperialism and professionalisation. A team of expert contributors has examined profession-state engagements between Britain, on the one hand and Canada, South Africa, Australia, Nigeria, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, India and Kenya, and the other with a view to assessing how the organizations of accountancy in the colonies was affecting the metropolitan profession and state agents- and vice versa. Their contributions highlight the peculiarities of the professionalization processes in variant social, economic and political environments linked together by the relays of empire, prompting reflection on both the common and disparate dynamics involved.

This book has numerous objectives, including giving historical insight and focus on countries that provide contrasting and variant examples of the uptake of the “British model”, and broadening the appeal of accounting history and professionalisation as a taught subject in university accounting departments.

Author Biography

Chris Poullaos is an Associate Professor in Accounting at the University of Sydney, Australia. He has completed a PhD on the professionalization of accountancy in Australia at the University of New South Wales. His subsequent work on the professionalization of accounting in Australia, Britain, Canada, the Phillipines and South Africa has appeared in Abacus, Accounting Organizations and Society, Accounting Auditing and Accountability, Critical Perspectives on Accounting and in several monographs.

Suki Sian is a chartered accountant and holds a PhD from the University of Aberdeen and an MSc in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics. She most recently lectured at Cardiff University, UK, where she was also a member of the Accounting History Group. She was awarded the Vangermeersch Manuscript Award in 2006 for her paper on the professionalization of accountancy in Kenya.